Jack White defends TIDAL: “What is elitist about it? Who’s speaking for the little guy”

Jack White has come to streaming service TIDAL’s service via a Q&A session on his own label Third Man’s website.

White was one of several musicians to back Jay Z’s newly-acquired service from the beginning. It’s since come under staunch criticism, the biggest accusations claiming that it only serves to help musicians, rather than improving the experiencer for listeners.

He began by saying that unknown artists get paid by TIDAL, and this is the biggest difference between the service and something like Spotify. “I’m talking about the punk band that has 50k hits on Youtube and doesn’t see a dime,” he said.

“Unknown musicians don’t have a voice being heard, i want those artists to make a living at being artists so more great music can happen,” he continued.

He also said big artists don’t benefit from current streaming platforms. “If PSY gets viewed 2 billion times and makes a couple grand, where did all his money go?” he asked.

Asked if TIDAL is elitist, he said: “What is elitist about it? Who’s speaking for the little guy?”

When told that TIDAL should at least have some kind of free tier, he said: “Third Man does not own or make decisions for tidal, this deal is incredibly cool and took us a long time to work on the logistics of. third man is artist owned, and tidal is artist owned. it wasn’t something we had to do at all, but we wanted the vault members to all know they come first and they have a portal to this artist run streaming service through us now.”